Growing Up Floridian is a personal memoir about me growing up in 1950’s and 1960’s Florida and learning life lessons in a rural Cracker-cowboy environment. The audience for this book could be natural history enthusiasts, baby boomers (particularly, those with a Florida connection), and readers of the memoir genre. The stories offer connections for people who grew up in a simpler time and would enjoy both an exploration of natural Florida and a working ranch. Individual chapters capture monuments
when I tried to understand parental decisions, encounters with potentially deadly wildlife, and evocative moments that ensnared my youthful imagination. Responding to the accidental death of my brother, my parents’ divorce, and the turbulence of the 1960’s produce within me a desire to understand life’s rhythms. When I made efforts to stay attuned to the natural world, conflicts seemed less debilitating. My text presents a look at Floridian wildlife from the perspective of a youngster learning about the cowboy way of handling the complexities life threw at me. The memoir ends in the my young adult years. (The video clips show the property that was home to the Quarter Circle A Ranch in 1959 and in 2021. The ranch was sold to a large commercial farming enterprise.)
